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Repairing the Damage Done

May 24, 2007 6:22 pmMay 24, 2007 6:22 pm

WASHINGTON — More than three decades ago, Nixon White House Counsel John Dean called the Watergate cover-up “a cancer on the presidency.” Another one exists today, posing a challenge for the next president to restore the office as a credible voice in foreign policy.

President Bush’s detour in Iraq off the multilateral track adhered to throughout the Cold War years has caused a deep drop in American prestige abroad, requiring extensive repair by his successor regardless of which party wins in 2008.

While Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has been the immediate trigger for the decline of American influence, just as significant was his original failure to capitalize on the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to mobilize a truly collective global response.

The outpouring of empathy for the United States in the wake of those events was quickly short-circuited by the invasion. In diverting the American military from its legitimate focus against the real perpetrators of the attacks, Bush left the primary job undone in Afghanistan, in order to chase a more ambitious dream of superpower dominance.

A decade earlier, neoconservative theorists in the Republican Party saw in the collapse of the Soviet Union an invitation for America to assume a vastly more assertive, unilateral role in imposing its power and political ideology elsewhere.

Among these theorists at the Pentagon was Paul Wolfowitz, deputy undersecretary to Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, who worried that with the demise of Soviet communism the strongest rationale for a muscular national defense was gone. Yet serious threats remained, from nuclear ambitions in North Korea and the determination in Iran and Iraq to assure control of their vast oil resources essential to American power.

Under Wolfowitz, a quest was undertaken for a strategy justifying continued American military hegemony. As James Mann wrote in his revealing 2004 book, “The Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet,” Wolfowitz assigned his chief assistant, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, to have a draft prepared that “set forth a new vision for a world dominated by a lone American superpower, actively working to make sure that no rival or group of rivals would ever emerge.”

Libby gave the assignment to another Wolfowitz aide named Zalmay Khalilzad, little known then outside defense circles. He ultimately became the American ambassador to occupied Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a new American-sponsored regime in Baghdad, and subsequently ambassador to the United Nations.

A leak of the Khalilzad draft, according to Mann, caused embarrassment and was rewritten, but the finished product became a rough blueprint for the radical new American foreign policy that flowered in the George W. Bush administration.

The draft envisioned a world in which American military power alone would rival or replace the collective security that had marked U.S. containment policy through the Cold War. It even hypothesized, Mann wrote, the possible future need for “preempting an impending attack with nuclear chemical and biological weapons” — the rationale eventually dusted off for the Iraq invasion.

A side incentive for developing the new strategy was pressure from congressional Democrats for a substantial “peace dividend” after the Cold War’s end. To counter such diversions of defense spending for neglected domestic needs, the Pentagon theorists needed a persuasive argument for a lusty military budget.

When Khalilzad’s draft kicked up criticism that it smacked of hostility to other nations, Libby toned down the language in what became the Defense Policy Guidance of 1992, but the essential message remained. By keeping America militarily all-powerful, other countries would be deterred from attempting to match its strength.

When Bill Clinton took over the White House after the 1992 election, he didn’t, according to Mann, seriously challenge the basic force concept, focusing more on domestic matters. The neoconservative theorists, out of power, nevertheless fretted about Congressional projections of static or shrinking defense budgets.

In 1997, they banded together as the Project for the New American Century to build on the 1992 policy statement. A subsequent paper called for more defense spending to preserve “the current Pax Americana … through the coming transformation of war made possible by the new techniques,” including nuclear weapons, in the hands of new, often regional threats.

The group noted critically that the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review of 1997 “assumed that [North Korea’s] Kim Jong Il and [Iraq’s] Saddam Hussein each could begin a war—perhaps even while employing chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons—and the United States would make no effort to unseat either ruler.”

The paper observed that “past Pentagon war games have given little or no consideration to the force requirements necessary not only to defeat an attack but to remove these regimes from power and conduct post-combat stability operations …

“The current American peace will be short-lived if the United States becomes vulnerable to rogue powers with small, inexpensive arsenals of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction. We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies or threaten the American homeland itself. The blessings of the American peace, purchased at fearful cost and a century of effort, should not be so trivially squandered.”

According to Gary Schmitt, a co-chairman of the project, George W. Bush, governor of Texas at the time, was neither a member of the group nor as far as Schmitt knows aware at the time of its findings. But among the participants were Wolfowitz and Libby, architects of the basic concept of a muscular defense including preemption of threats of weapons of mass destruction.

Did Bush as president come on his own to embrace the precepts of the project or was he sold on them by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby and others of the circle known as “the Vulcans”? Either way, events of the post-9/11 years have confirmed that those precepts were at the core of the radical foreign policy that have imperiled his presidency and American leadership across the globe.

Among the first challenges for Bush’s successor in 2009 will be to demonstrate dramatically that he or she has learned the hard lesson of that go-it-alone foreign policy, which in the end forced America to go hat-in-hand to the international community. The new president must waste no time putting America back on the track of multilateralism and collective security.

With very good luck and a return to diplomacy, the United States could be out of Iraq by that time, giving the next president, Republican or Democratic, a free hand to restore the reputation of the American presidency in the eyes of friends and foes abroad, and at home as well.

Your plan for the new Democrat President 2009 is great, and I love it: less military spending and more diplomacy, more multilaterism. If only we can persuade the DNC to campaign on these themes.
If the Democratic party can be convinced to follow Mr. Witcover’s concepts, the Republicans can win all 50 states!!! It will be Morning Again in America.

When the Neocons issued their manifesto, they conceded that their “policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today.” It became viable only through the confluence of Bush’s election and 9/11. Otherwise the blueprint of these Armchair Revolutionaries would have remained a pipedream: //ajliebling.blogspot.com/2007/04/6-bushs-armchair-revolutionaries.html

Thank you very much for relating this clear picture of events to the American public.

Were the mischief of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, Bush et al not so colossally tragic, it would be hilarious. These maniacal characters surpass the those in “Dr. Strangelove” for doing damage based on insane hypotheses.

The whole lot of them should be committed promptly, if not incarcerated awaiting trial on criminal charges, BEFORE they do yet more damage, such as starting a “War against Iran”–for which obviously they are champing at the bit.

Catastrophic damage CAN occur to us at any moment because of these maniacs; it is FOLLY to imagine we can wait until after the next election to just correct whatever damage may have been done by then. If our future is left up to Bush & Co. another day, the possibility of “nu-cue-lar” annihilation for US looms large.

What then shall we do, to save ourselves from their insulated insanity and its effects, without delay?

At present, the ideology of the Bush administration has been discredited both at home and abroad. Most of Bush’s foreign allies have been ejected from office. Most Republican sympathizers have been swept out of Congress. In this atmosphere, the rehabilitation of America’s image abroad may be easier than you suggest. Of key importance is the election of a new president who avoids unilateral actions that antagonize critical allies or encroach upon the internal operations of less powerful nations. With the recognition that the neoconservative platform was never part of a popular movement, the world will likely cut us some slack.

In my opinion, the lesson to be learned is that we need to be more careful about whom we elect to the most powerful office in the world. Bush is guilty not only of championing poorly-conceived ideas, but of executing his bad ideas with notable incompetence. If there is anything to be thankful for, it’s that he was unable to do what he wanted to do. Our electoral process obviously left too much to chance in this instance – how can we prevent this from happening in the future?

We won’t start to withdraw from Iraq until Alberto Gonzales is out of office. The next Democratic President will have to begin that process. For Bush to do anything else will be to admit has policy has been a big mistake. And that is not in his character, which is surprising considering that his experience in business should have given him enough experience in failure. He has run the government like he ran his businesses – into the ground. Except that he refused to take the bailout offered by the Iraq Study Group.

I think that it is appropriate that #1 is parroting the Republican talking points. To expect the Republicans to win the election, much less all 50 states is expecting too much of Karl Rove and Gonzo’s bogus band of thieves disguised as federal attorneys.

The Bush agenda was predictable before he was “elected”. During the 2000 campaign, he said, only partially tongue-in-cheek:
Dictatorships are a pretty good way of getting things done” The neo-cons, seeing a pliable patsy in George W.helped to get him “elected” and sure enough, we have come close to having a Bush dictator- witness (according to the ABA) the fact that he has broken about 800 laws, violated or denounced most international treaties, illegally taken away individual rights to privacy,
signed presidential statements declaring openly that he would not obey the very laws he signed- e.g. the Anti- Torture Law, etc.etc. Why are we so surprised that things have gone so badly in this country, that we have lost the respect of the rest of the world. Where was the press during the last 6 years??

Thanks Mr. Whitcover for painting such a clear picture of the workings of this very distrubing administration. I hope America heeds your words.

I remain concerned that there may not be enough support to substantially change the direction of this country even under a new administration, especially if it is GOP administration. I have been amazed for a long time now about how many americans (30-40%)continue to approve of Bush’s job performance! At first I thought that most of these people were basically decent with some semblance of moral values, and that they have been misled by very sophisticated marketing campaign that relies on fear and greed.

I no longer believe that this is entirely the case. As I listen to inteviews conducted across the country and follow the news, my opinion is that many of these people are simply hypocrits and lacking in moral character.

As far as the other group goes, the 60-70 % disapproval group, when will they stand up and demand change? or will they simply go along with the status quo and not demand change until some catastrophy directly interferes with their lives? If this is the case then this country will continue on its present self destructive path. Eventually, we will get more that a taste of our own medicine. Unfortunately it will probably be our children who will be forced swallow it.

Is this the frog in the hot water story? The majority of people knows that Bush really is the worst President in American history, so why do we excuse him? This president will become another chapter in Barbara Tuchman’s “The March OF Folly”. I understand he is the commander in chief, so we cut him some slack, but why Jimmy Carter would say something he believes to be true about this president (worst one in history), then back track, is beyond me. Why are we so afraid that we can’t say we made a mistake in electing this stupid (as Forest’s mama would say, “stupid is as stupid does”) person. How could anyone make up a reality any worse than the one Bush has put us in?

Why is it said that if you don’t support him that you don’t support our troops or America? Is that not a shell game kind of switch the thinking off of one thing to another ploy. Under his leadership we waste time on talking about if gays or lesbians can get married, or if a woman can deal with her body as she sees fit. Why? After awhile you just loose faith in him. I have lost faith in him.

Many good points….BUT when will you be writing your article on how the country survivied the questionable moral character of JFK and Bill Clinton. Your articles seem to be geared just to bash the Republicans, and we all know that the DEMS have their share of questionable characters. Is the real issue that we Americans want TV star quality candidates, and are not really concerned with top quality leaders. This years candidates from both major parties seem to fit that bill, but what is there character all about, and what do they stand for????
The DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS, and no one provides the details.
Don’t stop your articles with the Presidency; how ’bout the moral character of our Congress???

Although casting the “American military omnipotence at all costs” mindset in a mocking light is easy from an academic standpoint, I suspect that most Americans would be more than a little uncomfortable with the idea of ceding any of America’s superpower status to anybody, militarily or otherwise.

In other words, Americans (we) like being able to blow things up. It’s not so much that we like the actual blowing up of things (though too many of us actually do), but rather it’s a collective self-assurance that we are invincible on a battlefield. It seems a point of national pride and national identity and one that any pol would be hard pressed to spin as expendable.

The funny thing is, I believe wholeheartedly that America (we) would be much better off if we let ourselves slide just a little (maybe a lot) closer to the rest of the pack in this regard. Domestic programs in this country are a joke compared to comparable ones in the rest of the world and I do believe that, given the resources, we (America) could run the world’s best public health system, its best welfare/workfare system, its best social security system…its best anything really. I guess I’m biased, but don’t we all (Americans) think we’re the best at everything?

And yes, this idea even applies in the middle of this “War on Terror,” which, on its face, is actually a very good idea. If the entire world community pooled its resources military, political and economic, we (the World) could make it clear to every terrorist group on Earth that their M.O. is not acceptable. Right now, the war on terror is an excuse to make progressives look bad. It could, if done right, save a lot of lives.

However, we (America) can’t lead a true global war on terror until we restore our credibility. And we can’t have credibility with crumbling schools, uninsured children, starving elderly people and a bloated military. I wouldn’t trust us either.

Posts #3 and #4 ask what it is that we must do. My answer is impeachment. That could get Bush and Cheney out before they do more harm. Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, is next in line. Publicly, she has come out against impeachment, as promulgated recently by Rep. Conyers. This, I hope, is a tactic and not a strategy set in concrete. The Democrats are making it clear that they want the troops out of Iraq, but they are thwarted at every turn — making it supportable to attempt impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate.

Bush and company are guilty of war crimes at Gitmo and AbuGhraib, if not also for lying to take us to war. Just because Bush 41 and his cohort planted all of these rogue players under faulty containment strategies in the 70s and 80s doesn’t give them carte-blanche to discard international law. The only candidate worth voting for would be the one who most fully articulates “blow-back” to the US public and calls for the restoration of integrity by reversing American exemption from the international war crimes tribunals so that a jury of Bush & Co.’s peers in the world community can demonstrate that the US is no longer a rogue state with falsified elections, making a mockery of western jurisprudence by ignoring habeus corpus and revelling in the torture of its detainees just as Saddam and Milosevich had done.

It will be interesting to see if the world WANTS a return to the multilateralism that preceded the Bush administration. It seems clear that most countries are opposed to unilateral US hegemony, but it doesn’t automatically follow that the old international regime can be reconstructed. One of the great failings of the Bush administration has been a lack of imagination — they only see what they want to see. Pursuing the national interest in the next few decades will require more than a little ingenuity, and some politically tough choices as well.

Withdrawl may be popular now just like invasion was way back when. I wish it was that easy. Bush’s greatest military failure was to steer the US into a no win situation. After Bush, the Democrats will have to stare into the same abyss that Bush created.

In the run up to the war the pundits gave scenarios of how the war would play out in language of great certainty. Most were completely wrong. Now they are giving scenarios of how Iraq will look after the US. They should be honest and admit they don’t know and can only guess. The current situation is terrible, disasterous. On the other hand, withdrawl is stepping into the great unknown. Vietnam was not sitting on huge oil reserves on an energy scarce planet and in a highly unstable region.

There is the idea that the US has done enough and the Iraqis should take responsibility now. This would be a valid argument if Bush handn’t destroyed the country and botched the reconstruction. Their chances of peacful success after the US are little to none. The Democrats are being attacked for having no clear line on Iraq. This merely reflects the fact that there is no magic solution. At least this is more fact based than Bush’s magic “surge”. Uncertainty does not tend to be a great election winning message but the facts aren’t always friendly.

The article suports my belief that our invasion of Iraq was based on the perception that, after 9/11, we needed an opportunity to express American power. Our military might could not be directed against “individuals,” such as Ben Laden; rather it required a broader target, such as a “country,” here Iraq. Even now, the continued limitations in our capacity to use that power to achieve our ends is painfully apparent. Whether directed against “insurgents” or “ideas,” our military might cannot stop suicidal bombers and others who are prepared, because of their beliefs, to sacrifice their lives. Only the Iraqis can hope to reconcile their sectarian differences, and thusfar, they appear unable or unwilling to do so.

A good analysis. I am always amused by the argument that the Bushies have the high moral character, so they are to be admired. The history books indicate that Hitler also had a high moral character, except for a few phobias. With regard to our recent Presidents, I’ll take leadership (FDR, JFK, Reagan) any time, leaving a discussion of morality to the hair-splitters. For me, the sins of the Bush administration (tax cuts in return for campaign contributions, simpletons in the cabinet, an endless procession of dead and severely injured vets, regulatory agencies handed over to the corporately greedy) outweigh by a few metric tons the current lack of the type of scandals so thoroughly coveted by Fox News.

“Many good points….BUT when will you be writing your article on how the country survivied the questionable moral character of JFK and Bill Clinton.”

As a country, we are far worse off with a vain, ignorant ideologue than with intelligent leaders who have personal lives that do not necessarily match our highest ideals. The private lives of JFK and Clinton simply had no bearing on their leadership, and both were capable of taking in the scope of complicated issues and trying to find workable solutions. Compare that with a president simultaneously inept and stubborn, who is surrounded by people who believe it is their duty to politicize every aspect of life — be it science, research, information — that doesn’t fit with their intolerant, narrow, delusional view of the world. I’ll take the president who sleeps around but is a superb leader over a faithful but clueless puppet of extremists. Bush says he doesn’t do nuance. That’s because he can’t.

This president still sells himself as a war president who is keeping America safe. On the Fox Channel, the pundits constantly question whether John Edwards–with the video showing him quaffing his hair for 5 minutes–has the gravitas and manhood to protect the nation. The horrible irony is that this neoconservative policy, developed as part of the Project for the New American Century and aided through the manipulation of President Bush, has made us less safe and has resulted in the weakening of our nation and its moral authority. China, Russia, North Korea,Iran and Al Qaeda are all smirking as America finds itself mired in a quagmire from which we cannot extricate ourselves. Over 400 billion dollars and counting, 3,000+ American lives and thousands injured, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens displaced and dead, and with what result for American security? We have destabilized the Middle East even further, made Iran the preeminent power of the region, created a front on the war on terror that did not exist before, and created an advertisement for terrorists that would make Leo Burnett green with envy. Can the ultimate irony be that the Project for the New American Century is responsible for the end of Pax Americana?
The law of unintended consequences rules with an iron fist.

Thank you Mr. Witcover. This is a decent summary of the events, but as many others have said, it presents no plan of action for getting rid of this incompetent disloyal cabal right now, before they start another needless and destructive war. Recent news has it that the real Commander-in-Chief, MajorDomo Dick Cheney, has dispatched his neocon group, the same who made up PNAC and wrote the “Clean Break” manifesto for their other main co-conspirator, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, to induce Israel right now to pre-emptively strike Iran, with cruise missiles, to start a war which the US must then join. These worthies plan to redeem themselves from their prior crimes with yet a larger and world-economy destroying war. If nobody else, let us hope the American military itself will put a stop to their conspiracy – and to them. George W. Bush is incompetent to stop Cheney and his cabal of neocons; he is incompetent in general.
What Cheney and the neocons were up to was well known and publicized and predicted before the current Iraq War, and let nobody say that what they are conspiring to do now is not plain as day.
Only the American military itself can stop them.

Mr.Whitcover is accurate and correct in his assessment,as far as it goes.There is a second component to the equation that directed the actions of george w,his family is inexplicably intertwined with the house of saud in business.to follow through with an assault on the perpetraters of 9/11 would have led the investigaters to the saudi’s front doorstep.such a result was not in the best interests of bush family wealth.after all the bin laden and bush families were business partners.therefore a diversion was necessary.something to divert attention from extreme wassabi,shia based,anti western beliefs,yet convince the electorate the fight was ongoing.iraq was perfect,a sunni regime,a rich oil competiter to saudi arabia,with a tyrannical leader.create a lie of an immenent threat and attack.in the mix let ossama excape tora bora,for his capture would refocus attention on the true belief system,and country of origin,driving al queda.george w is not a revolutinary he is a deciple of coolidge”the business of america is business”with one caveat—it is the bush families business

“how can we prevent this from happening in the future?”(4. Paul Dorell’s question); Good question!
If I may suggest an answer, it would be: Bring back the all-American MERIT into every walk of life, including that of the Presidency of the USA (the most powerful nation on earth)! Apparently, the fact that somebody received diplomas from the Ivy Legue Schools, is not sufficient evidence of MERIT! There must be a better way of proving MERIT! Moreover, every future presidential candidate (before he/she is allowed to run), should be subjected to an extensive psychological testing, to rule out hidden disorders. Anna

Look at it this way. George Bush is just a front man for the military industrial complex and the “Support Israel” lobby. America’s best interests will never be championed by that crowd. Until the voters assert themselves it will be more of the same. The shadow government understands this and works daily to keep it alive. Gonzales is just the latest manifestation of a weak, malleable official in a high government position. There are Joe Liebermans everywhere.

9/11 put 43&41 at odds with their business partners,the bin ladin and saud families .saddam was a usefull boogey man,con america into believing iraq was the threat.this dispute is cultural,and to properly address it would spoil a very profitable business.43has consistantly violated his oath to serve private interests—a perfect compliment to the neo cons with a different,but parallel,agenda.treason is the word to best describe the bush actions